Xbox One’s July update has started rolling out, bringing with it a couple of much-needed quality of life improvements to the console’s dashboard experience.

The star of the update is the new FastStart feature. This new feature will let players jump into games they’re downloading earlier by figuring out which files are needed to play the game and downloading those first. In other words, instead of hitting “ready to start” and sitting in the title menu, players should now be able to play an actual game while in the middle of downloading it. Xbox just announced it at E3 2018, so it’s nice (if not surprising) to see that it’s already being implemented. It doesn’t sound like all titles are compatible with FastStart at the moment, though Xbox does have plans to expand it to include more games, with a focus on titles in the Game Pass library.

The July update is also making it easier for the more organizationally inclined to compartmentalize their Xbox One dashboard experience. The new Groups system will allow users to, well, group games and apps together any way they want and pin those groups to the dashboard for easy access. This means you can, for instance, group all your favorite first-person shooters or video-streaming apps together. Then, instead of individual games, you can pin these groups to your dashboard for easy access and a much less cluttered experience.

The search function has also gotten a slight buff in the July update. Now you can search for content, whether you own it or not, from anywhere on the dashboard, making it easier to find games within your own library or in the Xbox Store. Hopefully, this also means the search function will work a little better than it has in the past.

Finally, the July update gives Mixer streamers something to celebrate. The “share controller” function that allows Mixer streamers to virtually pass the sticks to their viewers now allows keyboard-and-mouse support for PC users (complete with key bindings) as well as added functionality for touch devices like certain laptops. Full-screen web cam broadcasting is now possible, and the quality and stability of streams should see an overall improvement.

About Michael Goroff

Michael Goroff has been gaming for almost three decades. He's a lover of all games and systems, but he mostly plays Xbox. That being said, if he's a fanboy, he's a fanboy for the game industry as a whole. Spit white-hot fanboy hate at him, trash talk his Gold II rank on Rocket League, or maybe just send him a cordial hello on Twitter @gogogoroff.

Xbox One July update going live with much-needed improvements

Xbox One's July 2018 update is the definition of "quality of life."

Xbox One’s July update has started rolling out, bringing with it a couple of much-needed quality of life improvements to the console’s dashboard experience.

The star of the update is the new FastStart feature. This new feature will let players jump into games they’re downloading earlier by figuring out which files are needed to play the game and downloading those first. In other words, instead of hitting “ready to start” and sitting in the title menu, players should now be able to play an actual game while in the middle of downloading it. Xbox just announced it at E3 2018, so it’s nice (if not surprising) to see that it’s already being implemented. It doesn’t sound like all titles are compatible with FastStart at the moment, though Xbox does have plans to expand it to include more games, with a focus on titles in the Game Pass library.

The July update is also making it easier for the more organizationally inclined to compartmentalize their Xbox One dashboard experience. The new Groups system will allow users to, well, group games and apps together any way they want and pin those groups to the dashboard for easy access. This means you can, for instance, group all your favorite first-person shooters or video-streaming apps together. Then, instead of individual games, you can pin these groups to your dashboard for easy access and a much less cluttered experience.

The search function has also gotten a slight buff in the July update. Now you can search for content, whether you own it or not, from anywhere on the dashboard, making it easier to find games within your own library or in the Xbox Store. Hopefully, this also means the search function will work a little better than it has in the past.

Finally, the July update gives Mixer streamers something to celebrate. The “share controller” function that allows Mixer streamers to virtually pass the sticks to their viewers now allows keyboard-and-mouse support for PC users (complete with key bindings) as well as added functionality for touch devices like certain laptops. Full-screen web cam broadcasting is now possible, and the quality and stability of streams should see an overall improvement.

About Michael Goroff

Michael Goroff has been gaming for almost three decades. He's a lover of all games and systems, but he mostly plays Xbox. That being said, if he's a fanboy, he's a fanboy for the game industry as a whole. Spit white-hot fanboy hate at him, trash talk his Gold II rank on Rocket League, or maybe just send him a cordial hello on Twitter @gogogoroff.